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Thursday, 9 May 2013

Whips, Chains and Romance Writer Brains

Cover your eyes kiddies this blog is about to get steamy! I
don't normally blog anything that requires an age restriction so I don't have
one. But today we will be talking about sex! More specifically sex in romance, and sex and romance writers.

You see I have had a
few awkward family functions lately... I mean extremely earth-shatteringly awkward, made me want to disappear or pass out uncomfortable functions.

The thing is now that I have gotten
to the stage that everyone knows that I write (that my lovely parents feel
motivated to brag about my writing) I get the questions... The really, really, fun to answer questions. As you can see I'm going to ease my discomfort with some Gifs, because this is painful to relay. The questions usually go a little
something like this;

Relative/family friend, "So what do you write?"

Me, "Romance"

And then the fun begins! The array of completely non-awkward-at-all responses...

Morally superior older family friends, "Oh, so you write those books?"

Well-meaning Aunts, "Ooooohhh so it's like Fifty Shades is it?"

Creepy Uncles, "So I guess we're going to find out all your secrets?"

Female family friends, "It's totally auto-biographical isn't it?"

The collective sleazes, "So I bet you do a lot of research... want some help?"

Yes, I have been asked all of these questions - most more than once. My reaction to all this can pretty much be summed up with this...

So, while I have a feeling most of my audience is pretty well informed I'm going to go all serial killer on a few minor misconceptions.

Romance is NOT Erotic Romance > Erotic Romance is NOT Erotica > Erotica is NOT Porn

Okay, now listen here all you cheeky enquirers - I write romance! I'm not going to give a lesson on genre but let me simplify!

Romance is a bit like;

(the romantic journey towards happily ever after)

Erotic romance is a bit more;

(The sexy journey towards happily ever after)

And Erotica is kinda;

(the sexy journey)

Oh they are all quite nice in my opinion, and I read all. But I write romance. I only make the distinction because thanks to every woman on the planet having either read or heard of and chosen not to read, the one rather kinky erotic romance, the entire genre has now been stroked with the same crop; where-in my entire extended family now think I'm writing about neck-tie bondage and butt-plugs!

I plan to one day write something more erotic but sorry folks, today I am writing love stories with good-old vanilla sex.

Romance is fiction!

Despite the rise in notoriety of some erotic memoirs by famous ex-escorts and self-confessed sex addicts, neither romance or erotica is autobiographical. It's fiction just like any other genre. There is about as much likelihood that romance writers are having sex with pirates as there is that crime writers are going around murdering people. It's all fiction people, fiction...

So maybe we romance writers can sometimes be a little cheeky. So maybe our Pintrest boards and Tumblr accounts are rather pervy, but I ask you to please bare in mind that we are regular people writing regular fiction. Most of us are not crazy sex fiends - although I imagine that would be rather fun!